In the past few weeks, Americans have been subjected to a barrage of doomsday predictions regarding the disaster that would befall us should the sequester come to pass. Many were rightly incensed, then, that last Thursday, only one day before the “devastating” sequester cuts were scheduled to kick in, newly appointed Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the Obama administration will be giving $60 million to a group of Syrian rebels fighting Bashsar Assad.

This hypocrisy was quickly followed up with an announcement on Sunday by Kerry that the administration will be giving Egypt’s increasingly anti-democratic Muslim Brotherhood government $250 million in return for promises of economic reform — which will rise to $1 billion if that reform is deemed successful.